Canada

Easter is a time for the iconic Cadbury Creme Egg. However, it doesn’t come in a lot of flavor variations. So it’s understandable that someone else wants to get into the cream egg marketplace.

I found these Minion Milk Chocolate with Banana Cream Egg at Cost Plus World Market. It was hard to find out who actually makes them, because it’s not Cadbury. The foil wrapper was hard to read, but eventually I was able to flatten it out to see that it’s made by a company called Treat Street, that mostly makes licensed novelty treats.

It’s a great idea, to make a cream egg with a different flavored filling, and in this case it’s brilliant that they’ve picked banana and partnered that with a Minion themed foil wrapping. They’re quite arresting when viewed in the full bin. But the most notable part of this design is that all of the eggs are Stuart, as they all have one eye (I suppose they could also be other one-eyed Minions, but it’d be silly to pay a licensing fee to make candies with a minor character).

My issue with only one design is minor, because the foil itself is quite adorable. The egg inside is completely ordinary looking. It’s the same as a Cadbury egg, except it’s missing a starburst.

The banana center is very yellow, in fact, one might call it Minion Yellow. Before biting the egg just smells like milky chocolate. After biting, well, it’s all banana. The filling is gooey, a little bit thinner than the Cadbury variety and a little less grainy. It is absolutely sweet and has a strong artificial banana flavor, though it’s also a little on the green side. Some banana flavors can have a lot of acetone notes, this one at least seems a little bit more unripe.

The most disappointing part of the egg construction is that there is not one cream compartment in the center. In the case of these knock off eggs, they’re obviously made in halves which actually have a full coating of chocolate that creates a chocolate septum when biting into the whole egg. This means more chocolate and less filling. It also means that there’s no “yolk”. Though the filling is extremely sweet and quite strongly flavored, there’s so much chocolate to balance it.

As far as a knock-off egg, this one is very good. The chocolate is passably good for a novelty item and the filling is distinctive. Since it adds its own twist with the banana as well as the foil design to go with the Minion character, I’d call it a win. However, I can’t imagine ever buying this unless I was specifically looking for a banana Easter item or something for a Minion fan. The price of $1.49 was a bit steep as well for the quality level.

Tic Tacs are reliable and shareable little mints that come in a dispenser box that you can always find by the sound it makes.

The Spearmint Mix Tic Tac is pretty simple, and not that different than the classic Peppermint.

Spearmint is a less common mint flavor when it comes to candy (though an easier herb to grow than peppermint, strange how that happens). The package holds equal quantities of medium and light green mints. I picked these up at Target a little over a month ago, but no I can’t seem to find them again.

If there’s a difference in the flavor between the two colors, I’m not sure I ever figured it out. It’s possible the darker color was stronger but both were suitably flavorful.

The nice thing about Tic Tacs are the smoothness. The coating on the outside is slick and kind of eases me into the minty notes. I’m a cruncher, so I get to the very minty core pretty quickly. They’re quite strong for such a small mint, though not as caustic as Altoids can be.

But here’s where things go awry. As I was preparing this review, I wanted to make sure I knew what all the allergen specifications were and noticed that the ingredients on the package said that this variety includes sucralose (sold as Splenda in yellow packets). I rechecked old reviews and packages posted online to confirm that this is not the case with other varieties. I specifically avoid artificial sweeteners and some are actually called out on the labels like allergens, but in this case the sucralose was just in the list way at the end and the word resembles sucrose at first glance. (And there’s some printing in a different direction on that part of the label that’s rather confusing, design-wise.)

Basically, I’m bummed. I have never experienced a reaction to sucralose specifically (my problems are with Aspartame, but I’m tarring a lot of other sweeteners with that brush, because, well, why not, it’s a big world and I should be able to get candies with sugar in them.) At first experience I was very enthusiastic about this variety, now I don’t care to eat Tic Tacs any longer. They were my go-to mint for full sugar and shareability.

I’m a big bubble gum fan, though not much of a chewer. I’m a purist, I like my bubble gum to be the traditional bubble gum flavor. I saw this Cotton Candy Bubblicious at the beginning of summer, though, and thought it was a splendid idea for a gum flavor.

The pieces are ridiculously blue, the package design is wonderfully summery, and it all smells like an air freshener designed for a child’s room.

The lightly strawberry sweet scent is strong enough that I new which room I’d left this package in without even looking. It’s not chemically or unappealing, though it doesn’t necessarily smell like food.

The pieces were easy to open from the little paper wrappers and soft. The easy chew was very sweet with less of the strawberry or cotton candy notes and more of just a clean sweeteness.

However, as the sugar in the chew dissipated, I was left with the taste of the gum base, which is rather like some door mats I got at Ikea. It’s just a touch of asphalt with the berry. The longer I chewed, the more that note came out, until I was pretty sure it was a sign that the whole thing had turned into a big tar ball. Nope, when I took it out of my mouth, it was just a piece of blue gum.

So, if you’re looking for some room freshener that looks like blocks of sidewalk chalk that you’re not going to chew, these are great. But even for the type of person who chews the gum until the sugar is gone, the awful aftertaste is too much.

Earlier this year Ferrero announced an innovation in the world of Tic Tac. They were creating layered flavors in a new line called Tic Tac Mixers and their first introductions would be Peach Lemonade and Cherry Cola. Because they’re beverages.

I wasn’t able to find the Cherry Cola but did see the Peach Lemonade at several locations and picked mine up at 7-11.

The press release described, “Peach Lemonade flavor Tic Tac Mixers: change from a peach flavor to the sweet flavor of lemonade.” But the reality is that peaches are sweet and lemonade is tangy.

If you’ve ever eaten a Yankee Candle Mango Peach Salsa Candle and thought, “That was unsatisfying.” You may find that this Tic Tac experience is preferable, but only slightly because this is actually meant to be eaten.

The initial flavor is definitely candle-like. It’s peachy in the most fragrant and least-food-like way. Unlike the candles, these don’t smell like anything in the package, the scent is only release in the mouth. The sweet peach layer gives way to a tangy layer that I think is supposed to be lemonade, but still has a strong peach note ... it’s tart and has a lot of zest but that combined with the lightly pine notes of the peach makes it all a bit caustic. The more I ate of these, the more my mouth burned like I might have been eating bits of lye.

The innovation of layering was definitely there, but I’ve always felt like Tic Tacs have a little layering to them. The standard peppermint has a bit of a fennel or anise on the outside and then peppermint inside. So doing a completely different flavor is cool ... but these are not the flavors I’m looking for. Strawberry Lemonade might be more up my alley.

I have to admit that the flavor did linger for a long time. I felt, for at least half an hour that I had “candle fresh breath.” That’s a thing.

I’ve been putting off this review of SweetWorks Celebration Candies for months. I’ve seen them at stores quite a bit lately, not just the bears, but SweetWorks makes a wide variety of shapes and color variations for different party needs. My hesitation was that they look great, but didn’t taste like much at all.

This particular variation is little candy coated bears in pearlescent yellow, green and white. The sparkly coating is created with food-safe mica based pigments.

I got a sample of their peg bag of this variety that’s 12 ounces, but I’ve seen smaller 6 ounce bags and of course some wholesalers will sell by the case. They’re a very popular item for candy buffets, or for decorating and party favors for baby showers and birthday parties. They’re made by OakLeaf in Canada. The package says that it’s peanut free, tree nut free and gluten free, however, the package says that their facility does use milk and soy.

The bears don’t smell like much, a little perfumey but otherwise a clean smell. I don’t know if they have particular flavors, as the package only mentions what you can do with them: candy buffet, baked goods, party favors, themed events, candy dish, bridal shower, baby showers. Nowhere does it mention just eating or how they’ll taste.

They’re a pressed dextrose candy, a compacted powder made from glucose (dextrose) is flavored and stamped out under high pressure to make the candies. Then they’re tumbled with some colors and glazes to make them even prettier.

What is also nice about them is that they’re designed on both sides, so the front is the bear’s face and belly, the back has a tiny little buttocks tushy thing going on.

When I was at the Lolli & Pops candy store, I noticed that they had some uncoated multicolored bears as well, so I picked those up to see if there was a flavor difference.

These are actually quite different from the coated version, which is kind of sad, because these are nicer. The texture is a little on the powdery side, compared to the SweeTarts tablets but not as chalky as Smarties.

Green is Lime - which is rare. It’s a more floral flavor than most lime candies, and much less sour than a traditional SweeTart.

Red is Cherry and passable, though more sour than cherry flavored. Heck, it might even be strawberry.

Orange is Orange and has a good orange soda flavor that balances the tart and juicy flavors.

These are nice edible decorations, but not great candy. I think the pearlescent bears may work well in decorating recipes since they don’t have a flavor, they won’t compete with anything. OakLeaf also makes Cry Baby Tears, which are the candies you’d want to get if you want something extremely sour with very little flavor variation.

Christmas candy is mostly about peppermint and chocolate and shiny colored foil wrapping. Holiday gum is rather unusual, so I was pleased to see Concord Confections part of the Tootsie Roll company has a variety for winter: Dubble Bubble Snow Balls.

I enjoy novelty gums for the same reason I enjoy other candy coated morsels: they’re fun to look at before eating. The Snow Balls are extremely cute. Each is the size of a garbanzo bean and rattle around easily in the theater size box. What I also liked about this particular gum was that they were white ... there was no artificial coloring (though there is titanium dioxide as a whitener), so I didn’t have to worry about anything getting into the flavor except what they intended as the flavor. The gum is made with sugar and corn syrup with no artificial sweeteners.

The pieces are beautiful. They’re rough and white and though spherical, they don’t roll around. The bite was wonderfully soft and easy to chew, but the flavor is ... well, it’s kind of like fabric softener at first. It’s floral - somewhere in the neighborhood of violet and maybe musk. After chewing (two pieces seemed like a good portion), the crunchy shell and gum base were very soft. However, within a minute, the sugar dissipated to the point that the gum was getting quite stiff ... another two minutes and it was an unchewable lump that was less appealing than a wad of paper. My style is to switch out at that point anyway, so I just spit out the first piece and repeat.

Now, since this was bubble gum, I should comment on those qualities. It works. The bubbles can’t get that big, as the gum base is too stiff and unforgiving. But it’s not particularly sticky, which is a plus. But it’s most definitely not bubble gum flavored, and any children you give this to might be turned off by the soapy notes.

After chewing, even a half hour later, I did notice a lingering floral taste in my mouth, rather like jasmine tea.

Dubble Bubble is peanut free and gluten free ... and in this instance is also free from dyes but may contain traces of soy. The gumballs are made in Canada.

What Theo Chocolate is offering in their new line of peanut butter cup are the following qualities: organic ingredients, ethically sourced chocolate, kosher, no palm oil or soy ingredients and free from genetically modified organisms. The new cups come in two varieties, milk and dark chocolate, and the dark chocolate is vegan. Though they’re Theo Chocolate branded, they’re actually made in Canada.

The Theo Chocolate Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups were $2.25 a package, I picked them up at the factory store in Seattle (I’ll have a write up about the factory tour after Halloween) but they should be available at stores that carry Theo Chocolate soon as well. The packages are 1.3 ounces, so they’re only .2 ounces smaller than the usual Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup packages. Theo uses peanut butter from CB’s Nuts, a small batch nut roaster and butterer.

They’re not your ordinary round cups, nope, these are little heart shapes. They’re .65 ounces each, a nice size with a more even proportion of chocolate to peanut butter than some cups with thinner chocolate shells. There’s no oily puddle on the top, but my cups were probably extremely fresh since I bought them at the factory store.

They smell very toasty, the chocolate is crisp and has a good snap to it. The peanut butter is not fatty or oily, but also not quite crumbly. The overall roasted notes of both the chocolate and peanut butter are very strong. For a milk chocolate product, this is only very barely sweet. If you’re a fan of the more savory elements of peanut butter and chocolate, this is probably a good match for you.

The texture of the peanut butter is similar in particle size to Reese’s ... it’s not whipped smooth, there are little crunchy bits and a dryness to it that keeps it from feeling to slick on the tongue. The chocolate is lightly bitter as well but has a milky note and smooth melt.

There’s no notation as to the percentage of cacao, but this photos shows that the milk chocolate cups are very dark looking compared to the dark ones.

The Theo Chocolate Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups are packaged so similarly to the milk chocolate variety, the sales staff at the factory store would let each customer know as they rang up their order that they’d chosen a particular variety ... so I sense that there may be a change in the future to help distinguish them.

The cups are beautiful, again, a little smaller than the Reese’s Peanut Butter version, but lacking the little fluted paper cups. Instead they just sit on a little paperboard tray. The mold detail includes the Theo logo on the bottom of the cups, if you’re so inclined to actually look at them before you gobble them up.

These have the same deep roasted scent as the milk chocolate, but without the light dairy note to it. The dark chocolate is immediately bitter and creamy, with a very silky melt but a strong coffee flavor. The peanut butter balanced the intensity of the chocolate with a lightness, a little hint of salt and a comforting peanut flavor.

Just one cup was exceptionally satisfying.

These are much pricier than the traditionally produced peanut butter cups on store shelves, but have none of the additional ingredients that give many folks pause. However, they’re still made in a facility that processes wheat, tree nuts, egg and soy so they’re not for those sensitive folks.

Though Justin’s Peanut Butter Cups were first to market with ethically sourced ingredients, I think I prefer these for the texture and intensity. (But I’ll probably still hand out Justin’s for Halloween since they’re available in singles.)

While Trader Joe’s has been pouring on the pumpkin around their stores, they haven’t forgotten about one of their other core flavors: Speculoos. Their newest item is their Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Speculoos Cookie Butter Cups.

There are a few spice mix flavors that are popular right now: Chai Spice, Gingerbread and Pumpkin Spice. Another one would be Speculoos. The odd thing about the Speculoos flavor is that it’s not just the mild cinnamon and nutmeg mix which is similar to Pumpkin Spice and Gingerbread, it includes the actual cookie. The Speculoos cookie is a crispy butter cookie with some brown sugar notes along with the mild spice. I grew up eating Speculoos, though I didn’t know it by that name, they were just called Windmill Spice Cookies.

The tub holds 11 ounces of foil wrapped cups. This quantity doesn’t fill the tub completely, but it’s true to its weight. The cups are wrapped in gold foil, and inside each little piece does not actually have a fluted paper cup like the dark chocolate Peanut Butter Cups which come in a similar format. Each cup is about 11 grams, basically the same size as a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Miniature.

Trader Joe’s also offered up a bar version of the Cookie Butter in dark chocolate a couple of years ago. That bar was made with Belgian chocolate in Belgium. This version is made in Canada (the Peanut Butter Cups that Trader Joe’s sells are made in the USA, which might also explain some of the small cosmetic differences.)

They smell lightly spicy, like cloves and cinnamon. The cups are shiny and nicely formed. The bite is easy, the center is soft and mostly creamy. It’s not as crumbly as a peanut butter cup can be, with a much creamier texture. The chocolate isn’t overpowered by the center, the chocolate flavors are well balanced with a berry/fruit note and a little dry finish to the quite slick melt. The cookie butter center is not overly sweet, not overly grainy. There are a few little bits of cookie, but for the most part it’s more like a batter than a paste.

They’re not completely peanut free, so it’s not like these are a great option for those with allergies. But if you’re a lover of candy cups but don’t actually like Peanut Butter, this might be what you’ve been searching for. I think it’s a unique new product and look forward to more cupification of Trader Joe’s products, such as the new Cookies and Creme Cookie Butter.

Candyology 101 - Episode 35 - Whatchamacallit
In the latest Candyology 101 podcast, Maria and I tackled a little-celebrated candy bar, the Whatchamacallit. We’re also trying out a new format, which is a little shorter, like a handful of fun size candy bars! (more)

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All content (text and photos unless otherwise credited) is copyright 2005-2016 by Cybele May

Please do not use my photos without prior permission directly from me, they represent what I ate in preparation for these reviews and are not to be used for other purposes.